MAIN DAWOOD
LAHORE – The police’s investigation officers are totally incompetent as this court has witnessed their poor performance in numerous cases before it in the past two weeks, the Supreme Court of Pakistan said on Thursday. A two-judge bench headed by Justice Jawad S. Khawaja issued these observations while hearing two cases, which the officers did not investigate properly. The complainants — a mother of three and the father of a girl missing for the last many years — are wandering from pillar to post to get justice.
In the first case, one Shagufta was stunned when IO Tahir Bashir informed the apex court that her husband Nissar, reportedly kidnapped by some land grabbers, had passed away. When the court inquired about the dead body, the IO remained mum. “How can you (IO) say for sure that Nisar has died?” the court asked. He replied: “Shagufta’s neighbours told me that her husband had died.”
Shagufta, a resident of Muslimabad (Fateh Garrah”, had filed her appeal in the Supreme Court, seeking cancellation of bails of Zafar, Naseer, Maqsood, Mahmood and Akram, the accused who had allegedly grabbed her eight-marla house. Shgufta, who herself pleaded her case, informed the apex court that she had rented out half of her house to Khursheed Bibi. Later, she said she had asked the woman to vacant the house but she with the help of the accused had kidnapped her husband to occupy the whole premises. In the next case, a Nankana resident Ishaq through his counsel informed the apex court that his 18-year-old daughter Sobia was a domestic servant at the house of a rich man of Shadman. In 2010 she said he had asked the master to let Sobia go with him as he had arranged her marriage but the owner refused. Lather, he was informed by the owner that his daughter had been kidnapped. Ishaq informed the bench the Shadman police had registered a case against unidentified persons however no practical steps had been taken so far for the recovery of her daughter. Justice Jawad S. Khawaja admonished the Prosecutor General Sadaqat Ali Khan over the numerous cases of poor investigations by the police. “In one case the land grabbers had kidnapped the husband of a poor lady while in second case a girl is missing but police have not taken a single step,” JusticeHani, another judge of the bench remarked.